Achieving adequate return on investment in the music, movie, gaming, publication and other content-based industries has been a longstanding problem, in part because of the difficulty of accurately forecasting sales. As these industries move towards providing their products in digital form, digital piracy and Internet file sharing will only make this problem worse.
One way to reduce this problem is via advance orders. Increasing the number of advance orders provides certain revenue, improves overall sales forecasts, and reduces digital piracy. Another way is to obtain as many indications of buyer interest in a product as possible prior to its release, which make sales forecasts more accurate.
Consequently, numerous methods have been developed to increase advance orders. Traditional methods include offering a discount on advance orders, freebies, demos, samples, special limited edition collector's versions of the product, artist autographs, concert tickets, back-stage passes, limousine transportation, private industry party invitations, artist interaction, and other similar enticements.
However, these traditional methods are inefficient because a large, motivated, but untapped “sales force” is wasted, namely the very buyers that submit advance orders. These buyers typically want the product as soon as possible, but traditional methods do not strongly encourage these buyers to advance order multiple copies or get other buyers to submit advance orders as well.
Another method is the “preorder (or P#) plan” offered by Multiman Publishing at www.mulitmanpublishing.com. Under this plan, Multiman will not produce one of its war game products until after it has received enough preorders to cover the printing costs of the product. Multiman has a preorder web page that lists, for each potential product, how many preorders have been received as well as the number of preorders that are required for that product to get printed. If the product receives the necessary number of preorders, Multiman sends it off to the printer and starts the production cycle. If the product does not receive enough preorders, it is not printed or sold. (For more information, see http://www.multimanpublishing.com/preorder/whyPreorder.php.)
The Multiman preorder plan suffers from several deficiencies and shortcomings. It creates uncertainties for the buyers because the buyers do not know when they will receive the product. No release date is specified until after the product has received the necessary number of preorders. In some cases, buyers who preorder may never receive the product, yet these buyers are typically the people who want the product as soon as possible.
Thus, there is a continuing need for new methods and systems for increasing advance orders, which preferably will complement traditional methods and systems.